DBMS > Informix vs. LMDB vs. MariaDB vs. Redis vs. Spark SQL

System Properties Comparison Informix vs. LMDB vs. MariaDB vs. Redis vs. Spark SQL

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

A secure embeddable database from IBM, positioned besides IBM Db2 as a relatively low-cost product optimized for OLTP and Internet of Things data

A high performant, light-weight, embedded key-value database library

MySQL application compatible open source RDBMS, enhanced with high availability, security, interoperability and performance capabilities. MariaDB ColumnStore provides a column-oriented storage engine and MariaDB Xpand supports distributed SQL.

Popular in-memory data platform used as a cache, message broker, and database that can be deployed on-premises, across clouds, and hybrid environments

Redis focuses on performance so most of its design decisions prioritize high performance and very low latencies.

Spark SQL is a component on top of 'Spark Core' for structured data processing

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes compatible with MongoDB

Key-value store

Relational DBMS

Key-value store

Multiple data types and a rich set of operations, as well as configurable data expiration, eviction and persistence

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store
Spatial DBMS
Time Series DBMS

with Informix TimeSeries Extension

Document store
Graph DBMS

with OQGraph storage engine
Spatial DBMS

Document store

with RedisJSON
Graph DBMS

with RedisGraph
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

with RediSearch
Time Series DBMS

with RedisTimeSeries
Vector DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	17.87
Rank	#35	Overall
	#22	Relational DBMS

Score	1.99
Rank	#125	Overall
	#21	Key-value stores

Score	93.21
Rank	#13	Overall
	#9	Relational DBMS

Score	157.80
Rank	#6	Overall
	#1	Key-value stores

Score	18.96
Rank	#33	Overall
	#20	Relational DBMS

Website

www.ibm.com/products/informix

www.symas.com/symas-embedded-database-lmdb

mariadb.com

Site of MariaDB Corporation
mariadb.org

Site of MariaDB Foundation

redis.com
redis.io

spark.apache.org/sql

Technical documentation

informix.hcldoc.com
www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGU8G/welcomeIfxServers.html

www.lmdb.tech/doc

mariadb.com/kb/en/library

docs.redis.com/latest/index.html
redis.io/docs

spark.apache.org/docs/latest/sql-programming-guide.html

Developer

IBM, HCL Technologies

Effective May 1st, 2017, HCL took on development, technical support, and product management teams, and works jointly with IBM on product strategy, marketing, and sales.

Symas

MariaDB Corporation Ab (MariaDB Enterprise),
MariaDB Foundation (community MariaDB Server)

The lead developer Monty Widenius is the original author of MySQL

Redis project core team, inspired by Salvatore Sanfilippo

Development sponsored by Redis Inc.

Apache Software Foundation

Initial release

1984

2011

2009

Fork of MySQL, which was first released in 1995

2009

2014

Current release

14.10.FC5, November 2020

0.9.32, January 2024

11.3.2, February 2024

7.2.4, January 2024

3.5.0 ( 2.13), September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

free developer edition available

Open Source

GPL version 2, commercial enterprise subscription available

Open Source

source-available extensions (modules), commercial licenses for Redis Enterprise

Open Source

Apache 2.0

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

STACKIT MariaDB offers MariaDB in a fully managed version in enterprise grade, 100% GDPR-compliant.

Aiven for Redis: Fully managed in-memory key-value store for all your caching and speedy lookup needs.

Implementation language

C, C++ and Java

C and C++

Scala

Server operating systems

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows

Linux
Unix
Windows

FreeBSD
Linux
Solaris
Windows

ColumnStore storage engine not available on Windows

BSD
Linux
OS X
Windows

ported and maintained by Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.

Linux
OS X
Windows

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Dynamic columns are supported

schema-free

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

Since Version 12.10 support for JSON/BSON datatypes

yes

partial

Supported data types are strings, hashes, lists, sets and sorted sets, bit arrays, hyperloglogs and geospatial indexes

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

with RediSearch module

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

with RediSQL module

SQL-like DML and DDL statements

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
JSON API

MongoDB compatible
MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport)
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

proprietary protocol

RESP - REdis Serialization Protocol

JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

.Net
C
C++
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby

.Net
C
C++
Clojure
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Nim
Objective C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Rust
Swift
Tcl

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Eiffel
Erlang
Go
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Crystal
D
Dart
Elixir
Erlang
Fancy
Go
Haskell
Haxe
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Lisp
Lua
MatLab
Objective-C
OCaml
Pascal
Perl
PHP
Prolog
Pure Data
Python
R
Rebol
Ruby
Rust
Scala
Scheme
Smalltalk
Swift
Tcl
Visual Basic

Java
Python
R
Scala

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

PL/SQL compatibility added with version 10.3

Lua; Redis Functions coming in Redis 7 (slides and Github)

Triggers

yes

publish/subscribe channels provide some trigger functionality; RedisGears

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

none

several options for horizontal partitioning and Sharding

Sharding

Automatic hash-based sharding with support for hash-tags for manual sharding

yes, utilizing Spark Core

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

none

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Multi-source replication

with Redis Enterprise Pack
Source-replica replication

Chained replication is supported

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

through RedisGears

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Eventual Consistency
Causal consistency can be enabled in Active-Active databases
Strong consistency with Redis Raft
Strong eventual consistency with Active-Active

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

Atomic execution of command blocks and scripts and optimistic locking

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Data access is serialized by the server

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

not for in-memory storage engine

yes

Configurable mechanisms for persistency via snapshots and/or operations logs

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

with MEMORY storage engine

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users with fine-grained authentication, authorization, and auditing controls

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

Access Control Lists (ACLs): redis.io/docs/management/security/acl
LDAP and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for Redis Enterprise
Mutual TLS authentication: redis.io/docs/management/security/encryption
Password-based authentication

More information provided by the system vendor

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